We navigate the unknown frontiers of the social universe through a sextant of existing relationships — nearly every new person we meet is within only… - Maria Popova

Perhaps, after all, we aren't divided so much into mind and body as into mind and mind. And few forces can propel humanity forward more reliably than the cleaving together of kindred minds in solidarity to a shared truth.

In a sentiment of remarkable prescience in the context of climate change denial half a century later, Carson articulated the formidable task before her: It is a great problem to know how to look at unpleasant facts that might have to be dealt with if one recognized their existence.

"Margaret Fuller wondered whether she was "fitted to be loved" — a word choice both curious and tragic: not "worthy," bespeaking an inherent endowment, but "fitted," as if she could fit herself for love by strain and discipline. With Caroline, with Sam, and now with Waldo, she had pushed and pushed to earn the affection she longed for — a push that eventually repelled each of its objects. But she could hardly have compartmentalized her nature — the very nature by which she had reached the stratospheric heights of her achievement. Those accustomed to hard work and self-propulsion, who have risen to the zenith of accomplishment by force of will and magnitude of effort, are most susceptible to the supreme self-damnation of human life — the belief that love is something to be earned by striving rather than something that comes unbidden like a shepherd's song on a summer evening in the mountains of Bulgaria."